White Sails
by Kraotop
Summary: Stranded in time in the Ocean Door of France, a man discovers many things are not what they should have been, and many things should not even exist. An original story in the established JJBA universe
1. Prologue

I woke up under the sun, waves lapping at my shoes. As I opened my eyes, I could see the blue sky and the sun shining over me. I leaned back my head a bit and could see a small white cliff 10 meters behind me. I could hear the cries of seagulls around me. How the fuck did I end up here like that? I don't have a headache, I have all my clothes on and my last memory was of going back to my hometown to see my parents.

Yeah, that must be it, I must have drunk a bit too much wine. Dad already fancied himself knowledgeable on alcohol when I was a kid, it really has gotten worse with time, trying to teach me the nuances of his new hobby. While imposing his habits on other is one of his glaring flaws, this is not an instance of it I ever minded though. Considering my current state maybe I should reconsider my position on the subject.

More surprising I didn't actually have a headache. Weird, since I experienced a blackout, but not the first time.

Fuck, I didn't even have my phone. Looked like I'd have to walk. I hope I didn't drive to the shore, I don't have the keys to bring back the car. I got up, dusted myself a bit and walked on the shore. I saw a familiar bridge in the distance: the Île de Ré bridge. It's been there since I was born. A wave of nostalgia engulfs me as I remember the little excursion on bike we used to do. This 3-kilometer-long bridge was the ultimate challenge to 10 years old me. Climbing up painstakingly half the bridge to go down at insane speeds after it.

Judging by the distance I am quite far from my destination. It will probably take 40-50 minutes to get home but whatever. I see a small bit of road cutting through the cliff to get close to the water. I take it and get on a white gravel path following the coast. I follow it and finally get to a bunker, one of the most notable landmarks around here.

Taken by nostalgia I climb it. The sea wind whipping my face, the smell of salt overpowering me. I missed that. I liked Bordeaux but it's just not the same. I look at the table-like sign in the middle indicating the name and direction of all that can be seen from here. Huh, they repaired it, it's as good as new, but they didn't change what was on it. Weird, that was a very old one.

I get to the first houses and I start noticing something wrong, everything is… different. I wasn't gone for very long, at most two years, but the houses are unrecognizable. Well, a bit, considering where they are, but they look less modern. If the houses were changed you would expect them to become more in tune with today's archetype of beauty, but I get that people settling here often look for the rustic and quaint life. No, what really put my weird-o-meter on alert was that some things just disappeared. Parking spots were left to fields, houses just not there, and infrastructures disappearing. It didn't make sense, why would anyone ever bother to get out wooden barriers and not replace them?

I entered my home town, what I saw completely broke my composure. What the fuck?!

Cracked roads, very old houses, barely worth mentioning pavement. It was as if someone undid every single one of the changes done to the small town over the years. Or that they never happened at all. Please don't let it be what I think. Please don't let it be what I think. Please don't let it be what I think. Please don't let it be what I think. Please don't let it be what I think…

I ran to the town hall, as I thought the small newspaper and tobacco store is still there albeit a bit more "old-timey". When I saw the advertisements, I knew. What kind of assholes would allow sexist ads like that today, and tobacco ones are illegal now, I think.

I stood there like a gaping fish for a while, some old guys passing by gave me a weird look as I stayed like that for a good 10 minutes as I internalized my breakdown.

Okay, calm down, I time-travelled, somehow, the world is weirder than I thought. But HOW? I didn't think that was even possible, I did not even believe for a second that it could happen casually, and leave me unhurt somehow. It's not even like I was conducting dangerous and cutting-edge experiment like in comic-books, I'm a second-year student _bordel._ The most impressive I ever came in contact with was basic resistance testing equipment.

I take a look at a newspaper, we're the second of April 1988. Fantastic, my parents aren't even married yet. I have no one to call for help: I'm a time-traveler, who is going to believe me? "Hey do you recognize me? You sure wouldn't, I'm your son from the future and I must squat in your small 20m² flat". I'm sure that would go great.

So, what did I do? I literally didn't exist, that meant no papers, which meant no job, which meant no money and lodgment. While in this time period Civil registration probably isn't fully digitized and meant many errors and lost files, I doubt I could bullshit through the absence of so many of them. On top of the basic documents, they also searched through family members files, and there is also the draft that I didn't do. I had no doubt they had safeguards against that kind of thing.

I'm guessing if I joined the military they would eventually look past the lack of documents and become a French citizen, but I REALLY didn't want to. That's just not a lifestyle that I want to take part in.

What to do then? I don't have much choice really.

* * *

I've been in La Rochelle for a month now. And while I loved this city, my sight of it is now a bit soured now that I'm homeless. It's not all that bad though. I've made some friends, I've not yet had any scuffles. As for hunger, it can be difficult, but may Coluche and his _Restaurants du Coeur_ be blessed, I could nourish myself regularly.

I'm disheveled, and while I've been getting by on diverse odd jobs, I tried to stay away from anything criminal. I didn't want to get in trouble. I've some connections still, the necessary stuff, when you don't have a home to hole in at night you needed information where to go, where not to go. You can't afford to do the trial and error thing yourself. You're not the only homeless in town, far from it, use that. In misery there is companionship and you can at least respect each other.

I was sitting under an archway. A small blanket over me. The night was still a bit cold. I was really getting used to living on the streets. The worst is without a single doubt the boredom. I literally have nothing to do all day except talk to people. That's why I try doing it as long as possible. I'm not really talkative, so them talking to me is okay too. That's why I was next to Jacques.

Jacques was a nice guy, 40 years old, standard cheap clothes and had a passion for the history of building infrastructures. Odd hobby considering his status but who am I to judge.

"It's frankly aberrant that we still use lead canalizations. Don't you think? Lead is proven to be greatly toxic, so how is it that we're still transporting drinkable water in them? I know it's cheap, but I'm sure the hospital bill won't be, the brain damage too!"

"Yeah I guess so." I said. I already heard him talk about that 10 or so times, so I simply listened.

"That's like asbestos, we've known for a while it's ridiculously toxic, but nobody cares!" He really was passionate wasn't he.

"You're the voice of reason man."

"Damn right I am!" Too bad he only ever talked about that, or cats, he liked cats. He was not the most complex guy in town. "But it ain't that helpful sometimes. You've heard about Antoine?"

"Yeah, that was pretty fucked up" Antoine was one of the many destitute in town. A real nice guy and a know-it-all. Literally. No joke, I don't know how he gathered that much information but at least he wasn't hoarding it. You wanted to get in touch with someone? He knows where to find the guy. You searched a safe place? He knew where to find one and at what price. But it seemed like he put his nose in the wrong people's stuff, and he paid for it.

Pretty sordid affair. You usually keep your hands off information brokers, everybody likes them and it's often better to simply pay their silence than getting into somebody else bad side. What was especially unnerving was how brutal the murder was. Our city was quite peaceful and the most you saw were petty crimes, not murder with a side of torture.

For that matter the city was far more dangerous than I ever remembered it to be. I knew from my parent's tales that there were some problems at the time, but the amount of weird rumors going around was starting to get a bit worrying.

The first group you had to worry about were the skinheads. That's was not something I didn't expect. The alt-right was on the rise and Jean Marie LePen was starting to worry everyone by gaining political clout. For now, he was still a laughingstock for his opponents, but in time we would realize how much beyond the line the joke would get. But it wasn't there yet, and the neo-Nazis did what they did best: being assholes.

After that, you had the anarcho-communists. I honestly couldn't wrap my head around them. I could understand that they rejected the URSS variant of communism after what happened, but still… I guess it was endearing that they were optimist enough to think that the entirety of humankind would respect a universal honor system. But they were heavily militant and they came off as hypocrites when they pushed the idea that human nature was inherently good when they were beating up people they disagreed with. But also kicked nazi ass so it balanced itself out.

Those guys were originally there but were kinda subdued. Now all I hear about is how these guys were stirring up big trouble and getting into rather impressive fights. Add to that the weird rumors about serial killings, disappearances and the angel of the docks and you got a town inconsistent with it's history.

Now I wasn't involved in that kind of thing, and I wasn't sitting next to it for long enough to guess the unwritten rules and the thought process of the crime scene. Jacques was the one that taught it to me. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, so I guess he liked being the savviest guy for once and stayed with me to explain me the ropes. After that he kind of stayed.

"Hey, wait a second" he said with a worried tone, "Aren't those guys coming toward us?"

He was right, a posse of 4 guys was approaching us. Judging from their clothes and how some of them walked, I guess they're not living in the streets and probably came from the bar. That means they were most likely going to be an annoyance and nothing too serious. Still, with everything happening in town staying on edge was a good idea

The leader of the pack, a fairly built guy, approached us. "Hey, get out of here you bitch, you're dirtying my sight". Rude. "You're just fucking leeches on this city, why don't you leave it and die where you won't trouble anybody huh?" The guy started kicking Jacques a bit, the trio behind laughing to the insult.

Now I'm usually pretty chill and try to avoid conflict but I have a low tolerance for aggressive morons. And this guy was being a stereotypical bully, and a lame one at that.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" I said, disdain obvious in my voice.

"Nah, not really. Sometimes you just need to take out the trash. We can't get rid of all of you, so it'll have to one at a time".

"Look, I don't know why you're thinking of us that way, but we aren't stirring up trouble. Trust me, I'd love to be out of the streets, but we don't have anywhere else to go." I tried to reason

"You're talking a lot of shit for someone within punching distance."

"Good, I have the same range" I replied as I got up.

The goons were starting to get riled up, if I pushed a bit more their alcoholic minds would immediately switch to attack mode.

Jacques, bless his soul, got up and tried to be the voice of reason. "Come on guys there's no need to fight alright? We're going to leave, right Arthur?" he said hesitantly.

All he got for an answer was his face in the ground. "Shut the fuck up you worthless bum."

OK, that was it. I punched Generic Moron n°321 in the face. People often underestimate how devastating a simple punch can be if you're not prepared for it. He wasn't. HE dropped like a sack of potatoes. I hit his jaw, so I guessed he would wake up in a minute. I had to quickly take care of the goons. Luckily dad really liked to give me fighting tips, and if there's one thing I remembered about fighting against a group, it's that intimidation is best weapon.

I looked at them and cracked my knuckles "So, who's next?" Cheesy, but effective. If they swarmed me, I wouldn't be able to win, but I showed I could at least bring someone down with me, and nobody wanted to be the victim.

So, they simply took the moron and fled.

Whew. That was awesome. That feeling of righteousness coupled with that of domination was intoxicating. I felt at the top of the world. Better move though, I saw a shadow through a window up in a building, they'd have called the police by now. I may have felt like a badass, but not a handcuff-proof badass.

I knelt next to Jacques. "Hey man, you okay?"

"Uuuugh, I guess" he groaned.

"You got hurt?"

"I think I lost a tooth"

"Let me look, huh, not much difference"

"Asshole" he laughed.

"I know" I smiled

"Still, thank for that, I owe you one. Where did you learn to punch like that?"

"My dad taught me, would you believe me if I said I never really punched someone before?"

"Ha! You're a big guy, not surprising people would avoid messing with you!"

We joked around a bit. Overall not a bad night. No good guy was seriously hurt, justice was served, it was exciting, and my self-esteem was through the roof.

It could have been a good night.

I saw Jacques' pupils widen as he saw something behind me, and before I could fully turn, he went around me to act like a shield. I suddenly felt his body ram into me, a piece of wood pierced my flesh just under my ribs as we fell to the ground.

I got out from under him and saw my friend gasping on the ground, blood seeping through his jacket and slowly flowing from his mouth. The thing I felt when he hit me was transpiercing his torso, probably through a lung.

An arrow.

* * *

[A.N.]  
So here it is. My first story. I already have the second chapter written so i will post it in a few days I think. Do not expect me to post new chapters regularly though.  
I lurked enough to know SI's can be really difficult and have the tendency to turn out really bad, but I hope I am introspective enough to avoid the typical deathtraps of the genre.  
Of course, do not hesitate, if you see typos or inconsistencies point them out, I can only improve.  
I sincerely hope you like it.


	2. Playing with an ant

Jacques was dying.

I was paralyzed in horror and panic. What? Why? How? A whirlwind of thoughts invaded my mind.

"Okay, calm down Arthur, remember your training" Speaking my thought helped me organize my mind and I did my best to remember my training as a lifeguard.

Rambling about my thoughts I started searching for where it was shot. I looked at the angle of the fall of the arrow (why an arrow?!) and my eyes fell on the window I saw the shadow through earlier. There was no one there.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck" the shooter could be anywhere, no matter, I couldn't help Jacques if I got killed.

With sweaty palms I dragged him in a small alley next to a bin. I needed to get some help but doing so would alert the archer of my position.

Damn it, I'll check first on the injury. Jacques was still breathing but with incredible difficulty, an arrow through his lung would do that I supposed.

"Don't worry pal, I'll get you help, everything is going to be OK." I said. It was more to reassure myself than him, but the little groans he emitted were enough to convince me he heard me. I tried to get his pulse, but my hands were trembling like crazy due to the stress of the situation. I may have been trained to perform first aid on people horribly injured, this wasn't some random injured guy, that was a friend that got shot in my place, and the shooter was still there and why was I trying to take a pulse that wasn't the first thing to do in that kind of emergency and-

"CALM DOWN! Okay… okay, I need to get help, or he'll die shooter or not".

I peeked a glance out of the alley and ran to the nearest door. I banged on it the hardest I could, but it was 1 in a Tuesday morning, people were sleeping, and the adrenalin was distorting my perception of time a few seconds seemed to me like minutes. 20 seconds later I went to another door and repeated the process while calling for help, if the killer targeted me instead of Jacques that was good too. All I got for answers were shouts to shut the fuck up. Bystander effect was one hell of a problem

I ran back to the alleyway to check on Jacques, that's when I saw him. I couldn't see his face from here, but he was wearing a sleeveless shirt and some kind of weird jacket, the front of it being nothing but two thick straps. He was wearing trousers made of cloth, but weirdly the low ends were completely separated from the upper end around the knees. What was way more alarming was that he was next to Jacques, the arrow in his hand.

"You, you were the one that shot this arrow haven't you. Why? Why the fuck did you do that?" I spat as my fear slowly turned into outrage as I put a face in front of it.

"Huh, you're a lively one aren't you, I wasn't aiming at him but I can see I hit you too." He said wrongly, pointing at my wound. His voice sounded calm, his voice was contrasting with my own growing rage and only added to it.

"Yeah it's pretty deep, but you're not going to pay for that, but for what you did to Jacques" Indeed, if he was in a bad state before, he now looked like a corpse. While an arrow in your lung is nothing to scoff at, it blocks the veins it pierced and prevents most of the bleeding. Getting the object out immediately is a rookie mistake, but somehow, I'm guessing that guy wasn't trying to perform first aid.

"He did that to himself, that weakling wasn't my target, it was you" He pointed at me.

"What? What the fuck did I do to you?"

"Nothing. I simply saw you handle those thugs and you looked promising enough." He said matter-of-factly.

If looks could kill I felt like I could disintegrate the entire block. But they didn't and the other guy didn't look bothered. What was he doing? Wasn't he worried that I would rush him? He didn't have a visible weapon aside from that weird arrow, and now that I thought about it he didn't have a bow. Did he leave it in the building? Maybe he's baiting me, goading me into making the first move before quickly drawing a weapon when I would the least be able to avoid it. Well let me oblige. I walked towards him at a steady pace, not stopping looking him in the eye for a moment.

I quickly bent down and picked with my right hand an piece of rebar and with one fluid motion threw it at him. With his attention fixed on the flying object I threw a brick I picked from behind me with my other hand while he was focusing at the first coming object.

He didn't make a single gesture, he didn't move an inch by reflex or anything. Both objects stopped in midair.

What

"Huh. Not bad. Your little trick would be quite dangerous in a normal fight. Unfortunately for you I'm not in this category." He said, though his voice had a bit more interest in it. "So, can you see it?"

I was sweating bullets. What the hell was that?! Superpowers are a real thing now? "W-W-What? You're kidding me, right? You're some kind of magician that can move things with its mind? What am I supposed to say? _I see that you can kick my ass? _Because if you think I can't put my fist in your face because you can make bricks float, you'll be surprised." False bravado. My voice had a bit of a quiver to it, I was starting to panic, and he wasn't fooled by my Oscar-worthy acting. How the hell do I beat him? No, change of plans, how do I escape him?

"Disappointing." He seemed contrite. "The arrow didn't choose you." What was that about the arrow? It was supposed to do something other than kill me? To chose me, but for what? Would it be a good or a bad thing? You know what? Not trying my luck, this psycho seemed to think I was pierced by his arrow, so it's unlikely he'll try again, and I'll keep it that way.

Mister silhouette was looking at me, in a disappointed way. I didn't want to know what a guy with superpowers shooting arrows at people for some kind of mystic bullshit did to people that disappointed him. Didn't have much time. What to do?

Fight? Not without getting in his range and I'm not quite suicidal enough for it. So, I flee, but what about Jacques? No, he was dead. His eyes were glassy, and the blood stopped flowing from the gap in his torso, his body finally emptied of it. He was dead. I didn't have the luxury of thinking of anyone but myself right now. Stop thinking about it and act.

I turned and ran. He sighed.

I felt something pierce the side of my back and throw me on the ground. The pain was incredible. I tried to push through it but I could only flip on my back. I was bleeding, not a lot but it was not benign. What happened?

I looked down and I could see the piece of rebar I threw earlier stick out of my torso. Shit. That must be how he launched the arrow without a bow earlier. I can't fight, and I can't flee without keeping an eye on him, not to mention the logistics of running with a steel bar through my flank.

I was screwed.

The guy calmly walked towards me. Not an ounce of hesitation in his stride. He was going to kill me, no buts. I was going to die as a nobody 10 years before my own birth because some guy thought I was interesting.

He stopped a meter away from me. "Don't feel too bad. You have nothing to regret as there was nothing you could do." That sentence was probably meant to reassure me in my last moments, but it somehow stinged at my pride. Stubbornly I shakily got up, every movement sending jolts through my upper body.

"Oh? Truly, what a shame. You would have added some spice to the game." He shook his head. I could see his face up this close. He had black hair, I could see he was of some Arabian descent. He had that "what can you do about it" look, like he missed an opportunity. "That looks painful, don't worry, it's over. 「Black Betty」 !"

Suddenly a reflex that shouldn't have happened kicked in. As I felt danger my body automatically tried to dodge, even though my eyes couldn't see what. I felt wind pass my face as I moved. But it was pure reflex, last minute. I felt something hit my shoulder full force. My body span a bit with the hit, but I managed to keep my footing and throw a punch.

The asshole had a look disbelief on his face, like I had grown a new head. He just had the time to say "What" before my fist landed on his face.

He wasn't expecting the hit, and even with telekinesis he tumbled back a bit.

I wasn't a moron, I could tell I wasn't going to repeat the feat a second time so I turned back and ran as fast as I could, the pain forgotten in the urgency state of my mind. The man amused laughter was resonating in the alley as I turned the corner, terrifying me just a bit more.

After 2 minutes of running I entered a three stories apartment in construction. Ok, maybe that wasn't the perfect hiding place, but it really seemed like it at the time to my panicked brain.

I sat down against a wall on the middile floor, trying to calm myself.

First in line: my injuries. Blood was slowly seeping from the wound on my side. I was lucky it didn't fully traverse me, preventing me from bleeding out. My shoulder hurt a bit, but surprisingly not that much…wait

Where's my arm?

I did a double take as I looked at the space my missing appendage should be occupying. When did that happen? For that matter, how? Everything down from my shoulder was missing, not even a stump. Everything from the articulation was gone. It wasn't bleeding, the space that should have been connected to the limb was just covered in skin, as if I was born without it.

I suppose that was the guy that did it. Did he have other outlandish powers like that at his disposal? Don't tell me he had weirder and that there's other like him. Somehow with that in the universe, time travel seemed to make to me more and more sense. Maybe there was a way to send me back. No, I was not going to ask him. I definitely could not trust that man.

But going back to the topic of my arm, what I thought were some kinds of phantom feelings like for amputees were not phantom. I could feel my arm, and kind of move it around, limited by the fact it was gripped by the hand of the attacker. I could feel my limb moving like a pendulum: he was walking. Towards me? No way to be sure.

God damnit. That was way too close and sudden.

Jacques. The poor guy didn't deserve it. HE may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was a kind soul. He didn't hesitate a second to take that arrow in my place. I suddenly regretted all the times I was dismissive of him, every time I ignored his repeated ramblings on the same subjects over and over. I took profited from his friendship, and in the end what did I give him? I knew that he stayed around me for a reason, I wasn't the only one getting something out of this or he would have left. But I was too absorbed in my self-blame to really find it. It felt as if I didn't appreciate him at his real worth, if I could thank him that'd be enough.

My thoughts were interrupted when I felt my arm abruptly stop. What was he doing? Did he find me? Normally that couldn't be the case, I made sure to turn randomly at a few intersections, there would be no reasonable way for him to find me right now. But then again, with what I saw today, I wasn't feeling confident in my opponent respecting such things known as common sense. It's not paranoia if they're really trying to get you.

I warily approached the street-side wall. There were two sizeable openings in it, obviously destined to hold windows. Many wooden palettes lined up the walls along numerous other construction materials. I inched towards one of the openings, making sure to look through one of the objects laid in front of it to not be seen.

And I saw him 20 meters away, looking at the building I was in, but not me directly to my relief. He looked at my arm. I was guessing that it was my arm that allowed him to track me, or he wouldn't have bothered with it. He indeed had no hand free, one held the arrow, while the other had my missing limb.

He must have made a decision, because he started walking again towards me. What did I do now? I could escape by the roofs, but he could simply continue to track me. No. If I wanted to survive, I couldn't avoid the fight, as much as I didn't want to. I wasn't going to fight him head on of course, I was not suicidal, just desperate. I had to set up a trap, some kind of ambush. My hit earlier showed he wasn't invincible, I could get him by surprise. The problem is that he knows where I am. But is he tracking my position or my movements? Considering that he arrived 5 good minutes after me, I was going to guess he didn't come straight towards my hiding place. He took a detour and so, followed my movements. I could fool him.

Suddenly I felt my index finger break. The pain was incredible and was only multiplied by the surprise. I wanted to howl in pain, but I couldn't afford to be noisy, so I grit my teeth and groaned.

"You know, you did pretty well." He was talking loudly from the entrance of the building, his voice giddy. "I didn't expect a normal to take up so much of my time. You even managed to land a punch." He chuckled. "I'll be honest here, it's been a while since the last time I've taken a normal punch. Shake the box enough and you inevitably get a surprise, and I got a rare one."

I looked towards the ceiling of the floor I was on. It was of course completely bare concrete, but the stairs' construction barely begun, which meant that the sides of it were without walls. I took a sharp piece of metal on the floor and got up to the third floor.

I could hear his steps echoing two floors below, approaching the stairs. I didn't have much time. Through an opening in the floor, not far for the stairs arriving to the second floor from the one below, I hanged myself by my hands, getting my feet up so he wouldn't notice them. If he was indeed tracking me and not just detecting my location, he would be lured past me towards the next stairs, very probably without noticing me as people didn't tend to look up. There are also good chances he wouldn't even bother to be wary if he felt superior enough. I just had to drop behind him after he passes me to go for a surprise attack. Not the most complex of plans, but there's efficiency in simplicity.

Of course, as soon as I hanged myself, I immediately regretted my decision: I forgot the piece of rebar in my chest. It was ridiculously painful. What the hell was I thinking. But he was starting to walk up the stairs and I hadn't much time left, so I did what I had to do. My abdominal muscles were never that great, not mentioning with steel sticking in it. But adrenaline was flowing, and the energy of desperation took its effect.

Gritting my teeth, I sucked it up, doing my best to not make any noise. I prided myself of being rather enduring to pain but even I had my limits. I caught a whimper starting to escape my lips.

"I know how it must seem to you. A guy with my power hunting a poor normal guy that's not even much of a challenge. And I'm gloating about it at that!" He just confirmed to me how much he underestimated me. But, as I loathed to admit it, he wasn't wrong. What were my chances? Close to nil. I didn't know how effective a gun could have been, but I had nothing to harm him in direct confrontation, he could track me pretty well, and I wasn't even sure what I was trying to do would even work. But he didn't leave me a choice.

"…But it's good to my ego. If it was just me killing you, it wouldn't be much to me." Psycho. "But you're making it a fight, a fight that I have no way to lose. It makes me feel unstoppable." At least he was self-aware enough to admit it. When he popped another one of my fingers, I could barely feel it over the one already there. He was probably hopping I would cry out in pain.

He turned the corner in the stairs. If I dropped now, he would see me immediately, but at the moment he wasn't looking at me. To avoid making noises I was biting my lip, I wasn't even breathing. My muscles were burning and tearing in front of this ridiculous misuse. The flesh of my lips was splitting apart around my teeth, the blood flowing in my mouth, swallowing so it wouldn't go out of it.

When he passed below me, the arrow in one hand, and my arm in the other, tears were flowing from my eyes. I was doing my best to refrain dropping right now, just to end this. It would probably be over in an instant.

But I did it. He now had his back to me. I slowly relaxed my abdominal muscles, the movement tearing through me. An idea of the harm I did to my body passed through my mind, but I pushed it away. Those were "not in danger of being immediately murdered" me problems.

I touched the floor, the makeshift knife still in my hands. I slowly made my way to him. I pulled back my arm, to stab his neck.

I couldn't breathe. Literally. Something was gripping my throat. There was no feeling I could associate to thing that was holding me. I wasn't hot or cold, it didn't feel leathery, metallic, or anything really. It felt like nothing. The same for my arm. Something was overpowering it. But there was nothing here. It was over. He got me.

He turned around and my felt myself lifted off the ground. He looked jubilant. "What the Hell! Just look at you! You are absolutely fantastic!" I would have shared his joy, but the crushing of my windpipes was curbing my enthusiasm. "Look how much pain you must be feeling right now. And you still managed to get this close. You knew you had no chance once I had you in sight, but you still had the guts to take the offensive."

While I appreciated the compliments, I was a bit too preoccupied by my imminent death. Could I even get out of this? No, I couldn't allow myself to think like that. How do I escape? Did both of us overlook a detail? Even if there was, with my hands immobilized there was little movement I could do. I looked down and I had an idea. It was a long shot, I had low chances of success. My coordination skills were already below average, and my situation didn't help. But I really had no other ideas.

I dropped the makeshift knife. And I extended my disembodied arm to catch it. I saw the guy follow it with his eyes, his expression frozen. I caught it by the tips of my fingers. I repositioned it. I stabbed his leg as best as I could. Making the shitty shiv completely disappear in it.

"AAAAAAAAGH!" His pupils dilated. I felt the forces holding me disappear as he dropped my arm in pain and surprise. I dropped to the ground getting my breath back. That's when he brought his other arm to his leg, still holding the arrow in it. He inadvertently slashed my shoulder with it as I grabbed my detached arm. I crawled back, took my footing and ran out of there. He didn't follow me.

I couldn't believe it. I did it! I escaped! And I fucking stabbed the fucker in the leg!

YES!

I continued running as far and fast as I could. My injuries were long forgotten.

I was well away from that apartment and jubilating, when I suddenly felt weak. The adrenalin and the internal bleeding were starting to take their toll. I couldn't go to the hospital. He would be searching for me after that stunt, and that's where he would be searching for me first. That psycho was still alive, I was sure of it. But as consolation I reminded myself, he would probably be limping for years.

Hehe. Serves you right! Ow…forgot I was dying there for a moment. Fuck… my vision was starting to get troubled, I swayed on my feet. Where was I again? Warehouses and boats propped on solid ground. I was in the docks? The …docks? What was I doing there?

Where was I again?

I tripped on my feet.

My right cheek was cold, it was touching some kind of stone or something maybe… whatever… I could think about it later. I wasn't in the mood…

Wait, I hear someone talking. I opened my eyes and some little girl was looking at me, she seemed concerned. She should be, it's far past her bedtime.

I finally lost consciousness as some weird shape descended over me.


	3. Candy feather

I woke up on a mountain.

In front of me was the immensity of the Pyrenees, with white everywhere. I sat up and noticed it was starting to get dark.

"Hey blondie, had a nice nap?" a voice beside me said. I recognized it. Dad?

I turned my head and sure enough he was sitting in the snow, not very far away from me with my mother and my sister in ski suits. He was here with a cocky grin and greying hair.

What happened? I felt a bit disoriented.

"Hey the movie is starting" Wait what?

Sure enough in the distance I could see I gigantic movie screen displaying that Maleficent movie that came out a while ago. All around us there were groups of people chattering about sitting and watching the film.

What an evening. Watching a movie on the ski slopes with my family. What could man ask for more? Well the sound was a bit subdued amongst the ambient chatter.

"Wait a minute, I'll try to get closer" I said.

I carefully slid down the slope, one step at a time. When suddenly I slipped. I tried to get traction and slow down by clawing at the snow without effect. As I accelerated, I started an uncontrollable roll when suddenly I was thrown in the air by the impact with a bump and I could see the snow meters below me my gut was wrenching I was closing down on it and…

* * *

I woke up in a naval workshop.

I was laid out my back against a wall. The floor was cold and judging by the light coming inside it was early morning. I could feel the sweat permeating me and my clothes. I love nightmares. I was covered with a blanket. Which means someone found me and brought me here. At least they seemed friendly enough.

The workshop was not very big, it looked like it wasn't used for its original purpose anymore. There were boats in there, but they were derelict and pretty small at that. They were put along the wall to make place, their mast broken. Quite a sad sight to see in a city called the "Ocean Door" but what can you do, businesses come and go. But to compensate the place was littered with little trinkets, toys and various decorations giving it a rather disorganized and messy look if charming.

I try to get up when I suddenly remember my injuries. I pat myself down to realize they're gone. All of them. That didn't make sense, I remembered last night: unless I spent a month in a coma I should at least have bandages. Realistically I should be dead. That wasn't normal. Then again, I just survived an encounter with a killer that could choke me with his mind, so I should be open to other possibilities. In fact, maybe it could explain that whole time travel thing. Funny how easy you come to accept such absurdities. Sitting against the wall, I tried to come to terms with that [I]event[/I].

Jacques was dead. I was never that attached to the guy. He was kind of clingy and his topics of conversation got stale pretty fast. But he was a kind soul. I only hoped I could have appreciated him better when he was alive, to know more about the man he was. He sacrificed himself for me after all. I felt horrible. I didn't deserve to live in his place. What did he find in me that he thought would be worth laying down his life for? Maybe that was just my low self-esteem, but I could not find such a thing in me. No, he probably would have done the same for everyone else. Fucking hell. He complained that his life was nothing but disappointment, but he died like a goddamn hero. I'll make it worth it. At least I didn't make his sacrifice pointless in the 30 minutes that followed.

My grief turned to anger as I was reminded of THAT maniac. That guy turned my night into hell because he thought I could provide entertainment and entertain him I did. Apparently, a defenseless guy trying in vain to fight back was amusing as hell. At least in the end I showed him even a rat, when backed in a corner, can prove dangerous. But still, after my stunt he would be searching for me. I had to thank my mysterious benefactor for not bringing me to the hospital, but I was still at a disadvantage. While I had seen his face, I did not know his name. He looked like he came from North-Africa, probably an Algerian. He looked old enough to have seen the war.

The guy also had superpowers over me. The fact I was still alive proved he couldn't track me anymore, which means that my hunch about my arm was correct. So, he had some kind of telekinetic power, could detach people's limbs and use those to track them. That's pretty much all I knew about it. Without further insight on its nature I really couldn't afford to extrapolate and act on false assumptions in future encounters. Still, that was pretty bizarre.

That reminded me, my arm. I still didn't have it. Considering the fact that I could still move it and feel through it it was easy to forget its absence. I flexed my joints and I could confirm my fingers were healed. So they took my limb with me. Where was it?

I was preparing to get up when I heard clankings. In the back of the place I could see there were some rooms with closed doors, the windows replaced with colored fabric. A door opened and a 10 year old child came out. She was wearing a lot of jewelry in ragtag manner and clothes that didn't really match. She was holding my missing arm in one hand and a steaming cup of tea in the other.

She was jingling a lot.

She sat down 3 meters in front of me and put both the cup and my arm next to her. She stared at me. She didn't look annoyed, or happy, she was just staring, like she was waiting for something.

"Hello?" I tried.

No reaction. Hmmm… what to do? I looked at my arm. I tried to drag it with its fingers, but the weight was a bit too much to even be funny. But she was looking at it now.

"Hey, don't worry about talking to me. Don't you see I am… [I]armless[/I]?" I attempted with a small smile. She pouted, I smiled wider. Dad jokes for the win.

"You know that was really, really bad right?" she said.

"Too bad, I got an [I]armful[/I] of those." People often underestimated dad jokes, but with a child they are really good to relax the atmosphere. Also, they are very easy.

"Okay, I got it." she said rolling her eyes. "Take that thing back, it's weird anyway." She was going to hand it back to me, when she seemed to reconsider.

"I'll give that arm back… if you tell me how it got detached." She seemed very proud of her idea. Really, I should have expected something like this. A child's curiosity has no equal.

"Okay, I'll tell it…when you give it back." I really didn't want to retell last night to a kid her age. I could take my arm back by force of course, but going the hard way with a child really didn't sit right with me.

She huffed a petulant and expected "No". I always had a soft spot for children, I guess I could humor her a little.

"So… I was sitting on a bench, when suddenly a magician appeared from nowhere and snatched my arm. Of course, I chased him down, I needed my arm to do stuff. So suddenly he stopped and said: "I commend you for your powerful legs, so I will give you your arm back. Of course, only if you manage to get it yourself." So the mage charged me. The bastard was using magic to fight so I was at a severe disadvantage and was hurt pretty bad. But as he approached my still form on the ground, thinking he defeated me, I stopped playing dead, jumped, decked him in the face, took my arm and ran all the way to here."

She looked at me with a face that just said "Really? That's what you came up with? I'm not 9 you know.". Of course, that was a completely retarded story that I came up with on the spot, though close to reality. I'm not good with improvisation. Don't judge me. I knew she wasn't going to even believe reality, so it didn't really matter. I was mostly telling that for the priceless reaction anyway.

"I told you my story, now give that arm back"

"Nuh huh. I'm not stupid. That was a lie, tell me the truth."

"Only if you tell me where you got all that jewelry." I raised an eyebrow.

She sputtered. I hit the nail right on this one. On a limb, I was going to say that jewelry didn't belong to her, obviously, but not to her mother either. She was living in an abandoned workshop, that was not really speaking "rich woman", but those trinkets looked pretty elaborate, pricey. Those stands on the harbor in the evening were selling some pretty good handmade ones, but even those were way too expensive, and often really unique. Some of the ones she was wearing looked like they belonged in a glass display in a specialized shop with a ridiculous price tag on them.

An option was that her mother stole them, and the girl was playing being Mommy. The other was that she stole them, and added with the other clues around me, like the ridiculously childish decoration, there was no parent around to stop her. Well, that was bleak. I, of course, hoped I was wrong, but I had to consider that option when talking to her. Also, my hypothesis opened a whole other can of worms, like how she reached those places near the ceiling, or pushed those boats aside, or even stole all these things. To do that she had to be the most skilled child thief around. There was something I was missing.

"I…found it… on the ground" she tried. I love how kids try to lie and tend to completely fail in an adorable manner.

"Riiiiiiiiight…you found a 10,000 francs necklace with a ruby in it just lying on the ground. You're really one to talk." I was having fun right now.

"Humpf. You're being mean. I'm not giving it back now." She hugged it against her body. Oh. Right. I forgot I was doing that for a moment. Got distracted by that adorable face. But she was giving me an opening I just couldn't ignore.

I tickled her neck.

"AAAAAH! Pft hahahaHAHA Stop it! I can't breathe!" Out of aforementioned breath, she dropped my arm and distanced herself from it. I took advantage of the opportunity and snatched it before getting back to my spot against the wall. I tried to put it back where it belonged, and to my surprise it fit seamlessly to my stump, in fact there was no indication left that it was ever separated.

She got up. She looked a bit mad. "You dirty cheater! I helped you and even made you some tea and you attack me!" Woops. So she DID heal me. Maybe I should apologize. "I'm gonna teach you! ⎾Mistral Gagnant⏌! " Wait what?

I saw a shape descend from up high towards me. I made a small roll to the side to avoid it at the last minute. Before smashing in the wall it made a hard turn and perched itself on the girl's arm. It was some kind of bird, not a big one, but not small either. I really couldn't describe it, the thing looked ethereal, light colorful smoke slowly flowing from him down its tail and its wings. The bird was multicolored, with a small crest, smaller feathers under its wingspan and was a bit shimmery, as if it was made of some metallic substance. Its beak was the color of onyx and its eyes were white with yellow bars seemingly crossing them vertically. All in all, it looked pretty fantastical. If you told me that was a Pokémon I wouldn't even blink. The girl looked surprised though, I assume she didn't expect me to avoid that.

"You can see it?" Implying I shouldn't be able too. "But, dad said only other stand users can see stands." Her eyes widened. She looked afraid now. That wasn't good. "You're with them!"

Really, really not good. She was terrified. Considering last night I could guess who "them" was, even though it implied even more superpowered psychos were roaming the streets. But I remembered that guy was talking about seeing something, and that it was disappointing I couldn't. I could hazard a guess Girly's and Psycho's powers were similar in their nature then, but now I could see them, and apparently that meant I had powers, or "Stands" I guess. I could worry about that later, what was important now was defusing the situation.

"Hey, I'm not with them. They did this to me, that's why-"

"Liar! I'm not falling for that. Stay away from me!" Great, she was panicking now. What the hell did they do to her? That was kinda worrying me. The bird leaving her arm and rushing me was too. I couldn't expect it to only hit me with brute force considering what happened to my arm last time. I simply couldn't allow it to touch me. I lunged to avoid it again, but this time the bird corrected its course and slammed into my side. And plunged in it. I didn't feel it. It [I]phased[/I] through me and quickly got out.

I tried to regain the footing I lost in my surprise when I realized I couldn't. I was floating in the air. I looked at the bird. It had now some kind of scroll in its claws. What did it do? Apparently put things in zero gravity. Great. There didn't seem to be other adverse effects so I guess I could stay like that. It was a bit disorienting, but at the same time it was comfortable enough.

"Now I got you! You're trapped!" She seemed a bit relieved now that I seemed to be in a position of weakness. To be fair I already had a few ideas on how to get to her right now if I had to, but I wasn't going to let her know that. Best to appear vulnerable to let her calm down." Now answer my questions!" Shit. "How many of you are looking for me right now?"

"I don't know. I'm not with them, they're the ones who beat me up." I protested.

"Liar, I know you were searching for me!" She wasn't listening to me. After all she was only ten, now that I was in a position of weakness, she wasn't going to change her mind, no matter the facts. I saw her notice something somewhere on her right. "⎾Mistral Gagnant⏌!" I saw the bird flying towards the place she noticed, a rat was there, munching on something. The bird phased the scroll in the rat.

The rat exploded.

Oh crap. That wasn't good. What happened? The scroll disappeared so that meant something. Why did she attack the rat?

The bird immediately flew towards me, it would hit me in a few seconds. I didn't have time to reason or think on its powers or anything really. I had to avoid it. I quickly took off my jacket, held it away as far as I could, my arms outstretched, gripped the sleeves by putting my feet inside of them, and then spread the jacket with all my limbs to make it taut. People often assume you are helpless in zero gravity, but quite the contrary, it is a world of near infinite mobility, for there is no force holding you down, only the one you make. I suddenly bent all my limbs, bringing the taut makeshift sail towards me, the air resistance pulling me forward and out of the way of the damned bird.

The girl was surprised, but quickly collected herself, the bird making another turn and flying towards my form again. I miscalculated. I could avoid it the first time, but I was now rotating a bit and changing my momentum in the good direction would take moments I didn't have. I had to act NOW!

In my increased sense of urgency I felt something linked to my arm, and I [I]knew[/I] what to do. I tugged on it and I flew towards the ceiling, avoiding the bird narrowly. I hit he roof with my back hard, making me lose my breathing. While I got it back I looked at my arm, some kind of pink string was coming out of it and was linked to the ceiling by the hoop that was on some kind of hook planted in there, in freaking metal. That was…me? I did that?

"So here it is. Your stand." At least Jingly seemed to think so. "Doesn't matter if you can move, you won't get me!" Christ, chill girl. But I got powers now, now that I thought about it that guy talked a bit about how being touched by that arrow was so important, and then I was cut by it. It must be related to my newfound powers because I sure as hell couldn't shoot hooked strings with hoops through my arms before. Or were they stringed hooped hooks?

The bird, or stand I guess, flew back down and took a scroll from the steaming cup of tea this time before going back to me. Nu-huh, no way I was taking that thing. I couldn't go towards the girl for there was the bird in the trajectory, so I pushed the ceiling at an angle towards the nearest wall, moving quickly, to land on my feet. I could avoid attacks like that quite well, now that I was in contact to a surface, but I couldn't do it forever I had to find a way to use my stand and restrain my attacker. I had strings, that had to help. Now how do I get them out?

I try several hand gestures, including the horns and the Spiderman ones, in vain as my attacker gives me a look of confusion. I dodge another swipe of the bird. I didn't say anything so it's not a vocal trigger. Maybe I just have to think about it, to will my power in existence. And then I saw it. A silvery arm separated itself from my body. It had what looked like pieces of armor with pink crosses on, and as I willed it a very small piece of its finger detached itself into a hook, a string attached on the hoop that was on the back of it. And then I retracted it back into place. Cool.

I could try a few more things maybe. The bird was following me again. The first hook I set was still there, but there was no string attached to it. I wondered…there! I launched a lone string towards the hook, linking itself to its hoop. I could link strings to previously set hoops, furthermore the process was fast, really fast, it did not even take a second to fly through ten meters. I launched myself back to it using my spectral arm. By the feeling it gave it seemed to be stronger than my normal one, was that the kind of ability He had?

But on the way back to the ceiling the bird managed to get in my path. It managed to put the scroll in my torso, even though I still couldn't feel it, and suddenly I was burning. No, I wasn't burning, it was my shirt that was insanely hot. When I reached my destination, I scrambled to get my shirt off, my skin was red under it. What the hell was that? Why was shirt affected and not my body?

The girl wasn't looking satisfied, that was for sure. But, wait, the cup she took the scroll from, it wasn't steamy anymore. Like, at all, and now my shirt was hot. I lost my weight, and the rat was crushed. Could she take the characteristics of things and put them into other things? That was broken, but it seemed to be very limited. Like, why did she put the hotness of the teacup inside my shirt and not me? If she had done that it would have been more than enough to incapacitate me, or kill me for that matter.

No matter, it didn't seem like her bird could carry more than one characteristic at a time.

"Okay, I'm not playing nice anymore, this time I'll be going for a direct hit." she said. She was annoyed at the ineffectiveness of her attacks it would seem. But I was too with being kept on my backfoot. As much as I didn't want to hurt her, this wasn't going anywhere. I had to restrain her one way or another.

Thus began a rather strenuous game of cat and mouse. Her bird chasing me to take who knows what from me. But in time I was starting to get really tired with my movements, and I could feel gravity gradually taking back its hold on me. So the effects of her powers were temporary. But now I was slowed down enough that I couldn't effectively avoid her next attack.

"Alright! I got you now! I win!" The bird plowed into me and I lost my vision. I simply couldn't see anything. Indeed, this could have ended the fight for me. But now, it was irrelevant.

"Yes, it is over" I could sense the position of the various hooks I placed around the workshop during the chase. I made my thread first pass in the hoop on the ceiling, then to another near the floor, and then in circle. As I created more string, I could feel it straining my power, but I pushed through. I didn't know what kind of face she was making right now, but I could guess.

In one breath in made all my hoops, except the one on the ceiling and the last one, disappear and retracted my string at great speed. As a result, the rings of string constricted around the girl, and she was hoisted in the air feet first. I [I]knew[/I] I got her. I could feel through my strings, ensnaring her. Was she trying to chew them?

I approached her, even blind I knew where she was. She was writhing in her restraints, desperately trying to escape.

"Stay away!⎾Mistral Gagnant⏌ stop him!"

"No, it won't." I stared at her with my blind eyes. "You WILL stop right now." I didn't like doing this to an already terrified child, but I was making my voice as intimidating and domineering as possible.

I felt her stop moving, hot tears were running down my strings.

I waited a few moments; the silence only being broken by intermittent shudders and sniffles. I picked up her restrained body, and made the strings disappear. I lowered her to the ground.

"Listen, I don't want to hurt you, okay?" I was speaking softly to reassure her now that she wasn't lashing out. "I don't know what they did to you, but they hurt me too. You are not alone"

I hugged her.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, her terrified form slowly calming down. My sight was coming back and I could feel tears running down my shoulder.

Eventually she stopped crying altogether. And after a bit of time she tried to get out of the hug. I let her.

I stayed kneeling, to be at her eye level. She still looked a bit worried though. I really didn't know what to say at that moment, it wasn't up to me to decide what happened next.

Hesitantly she started "W-Who are you?"

"My name is Arthur, and you?"

"L-Louise"

"Alright Louise. What do you want?"

She didn't speak, looking very hesitant. She didn't really know what to do at that moment, paralyzed by indecision. This mess must have been emotionally taxing for her.

"Okay, we'll simplify it a bit. Do you want me to leave?"

She thought over it a bit and then "N-no". Victory. Of course, she wasn't really sure of that decision right now. But I would make sure that she made the right one."


	4. Teatime

I was sitting in a kitchen. Well it clearly used to be an office, but the presence of kitchenware pretty much everywhere betrayed it for what it was used for. My savior was sitting on the other side of the desk on a stained chair.

"So…" She began "Want some tea?"

"Yeah" She poured me some in a bowl and gave it to me. It emitted a slight odor of lemons. God, everything was awkward after our fight. She didn't want me to leave, but I emotionally drove her to the ground. True, I was only defending myself, but she was 10 for god's sake. I felt guilty as fuck. "Look I'm sorry for what I-"

"No, I'm the one who should apologize." She interrupted, sheepish. "You didn't do anything wrong and I was attacking you with my stand. I wasn't thinking." She looked guilty enough herself. I guessed we both shared some of the blame.

"We both messed up, so let's start over, ok? I should have realized it earlier, but you were the one that saved me last night, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did. I found you passed out on the docks. I just couldn't leave you there, so after I healed you I brought you back. With your arm."

"Thank you. If it weren't for you I would certainly be dead right now. If I can repay you with anything just ask ok?" I didn't know if it was clever to put myself in the debt of a child, especially as she would probably not use it wisely, but if I didn't my conscience would probably never leave me alone.

"W-W-Well I don't need anything right now, but I'll remember it." She looked flustered as all hell right now. I probably could grill a steak on her cheeks. I took a sip of my tea, burned my tongue and put it back on the desk trying not to show it.

"I guess you saved me with your power. What was its name?"

"Oh yeah it's ⎾Mistral Gagnant⏌" As she said the bird materialized on her shoulder, its stare judging me. "It's my stand, I've had it for a long time."

"Mistral Gagnant… Isn't that the name of a candy?" Yeah, that probably was the most pertinent question I could fathom right now, but she perked up at it.

"Yeah, dad said it was his favorite candy, and because I was his favorite he named it like that."

"So, you got brothers or sisters?"

"No." Ok

"So… you called it a stand. What is it exactly?" She looked confused at the question.

"Wait you don't know what a stand is? But you have one."

"Yeah, I didn't have one before yesterday, or our little fight for that matter."

"That's weird, I had mine for forever, I just assumed you were born with it."

"Well I didn't, so what is it?"

"Dad said a stand is like your will but living. Like a reflection of your soul or something boring like that." So basically, a stand is a manifestation of my will, it's a projection of my own self. "Mine is a bird and I can do really cool stuff with it."

"How do I bring it out?"

She put a straw in her cup of tea and drank through it. How was she keeping her tonsils safe? "I dunno. Just think about it."

I tried to think about it. If my stand was a reflection of my will, I supposed I could just will it into existence. Sure, enough a silvery shape started too separate from my skin. It was flowing behind me. Louise stared at something above my head, the tea in her mouth spilling from her jaw agape. Even the shitty bird looked shocked. What was it with my stand? I turned around and sure enough it was an intimidating sight, my proximity to it certainly didn't help.

It was a woman in silver color. Silver pieces of what looked like armor were placed on her body, some covering her modesty, if she had intimate parts to begin with. Pink strands were crisscrossing on the armor, seemingly keeping it in place, although I had no doubt it was purely cosmetic. Her mouth was seemingly perpetually closed in a line. Her silvery mane was flowing as if in water making her seem spectral in nature, which was probably not that far from the truth. But the most striking was her eyes, they were sewed shut. Pink strands holding her eyelids together.

"Wow…that's cool." I was happy Louise liked the creepy looks, but I would rather the manifestation of my soul not look like a banshee. What was that saying about me? I'm an announcer of death? Did I sing that badly? Well I wasn't going to deny it looked pretty badass. "How are you calling it?"

"I don't know…" I really wasn't sure, did it have to mean much? Louise did not name her stand herself, but I guessed her father was important to her enough for that name to bear significance now. It was certainly significant to her father. _Mistral Gagnants_ were old candy, certainly still very popular when her dad was still a kid. They were a symbol of the innocence of childhood, which certainly fit.

What to choose? I really shouldn't go for something tacky or too complicated. No, it had to be meaningful. I looked at my stand again. It seemed to _gaze_ at us despite its disability. It had a kind of oppressive presence but calm enough to not be overbearing. What did it inspire me? It was literally me, a representation of who I was underneath it all. So what to do but let my own instinct choose on a whim?

"⎾Iron Maiden⏌, that's your name." Not very creative but I could feel it fit.

"⎾Iron Maiden⏌? Really? You couldn't come up with something better? It doesn't even have spikes." Rude. Her own stand wasn't a packet with sugar powder in it and I wasn't mocking her for it. But I wasn't going to blame a kid I just met for not understanding how I ticked, I wasn't sure myself.

"Well it's what I feel is right. I'm not changing it." I said a bit annoyed. "And I think it's a pretty cool name."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, so what does it do? I saw you use these strings earlier. A lot. That's what you do? You make string? That's pretty lame." Now she was just doing it on purpose.

"That pretty lame power defeated you handily if I recall." I smugly said as I tried to take another sip. It wasn't scalding anymore so I could actually taste it now. Yep, lemon flavored tea. Cheap but good.

She shivered. "Please let's not talk about that anymore. But you were pretty good with it for a first time. You can make it stick to walls?"

"No, I can produce some kinds of hooks that I stick pretty much everywhere. I just attach my string to those." I try to explain.

"Oooh. That's pretty straight forward. Mine can do a lot but it's pretty simple when you think about it." She looked rather proud of it.

"I gathered it took characteristics from things and put them into other things. I believe you can only do one at a time and with a time limit. But that's pretty much it." Louise was staring at me jaw agape.

"Wha- How did you figure it out?" She was looking at me as if I just grew a third head. It was pretty easy to impress kids. "Yeah ⎾Mistral Gagnant⏌ can do that but only one at a time." She was holding a finger up in the air as if he was giving a lecture. "If I want to take another scroll, I have to drop the other one into something. But I can only drop scrolls that came from a living thing into another living thing, and not living things into not living things." That explained why she killed the rat and didn't just ruin an object before attacking me.

"And the time limit?" I asked. She was flabbergasted now.

"Ok. Now you're just pulling my leg. How are you figuring this out. You got some kind of divination power or something?" At that moment her stand left its perch to go fly through her cup of tea, picking up a scroll. The cup stopped steaming.

"I just took the heat of this cup of tea. Now if the tea was naturally super-hot, it would progressively go back to it. But its natural state is room temperature, so it'll just stay that." Well that explained a lot. I didn't really expect such a complete explanation but I was not going to complain. But that opened other questions.

"That's pretty different from my power, and the guy from yesterday could just take my arm off with a touch. Are all powers this different?" If there weren't any regularities in stand powers, it was going to be a pain if I had to fight again. I really did not want to be blindsided again.

"I don't know, I never met other stands than yours and dad's. But yeah, his was really different from mine and yours. I dunno what it really did, but he could fly with it. It was pretty cool…" She looked down.

I wasn't a moron. A little girl all alone in an abandoned workshop, the place decorated and furnished enough to guess she's been here a while. But the most obvious clue was of course how she talked about her dad. The poor guy was probably dead for a while. And Louise was trying to survive by herself. I should try to bring up that issue eventually, but I didn't want to make her uncomfortable. She was opening up, it would be a shame to negate all this progress. I should start this conversation another time.

"I'm pretty sure I could do something like that with ⎾Iron Maiden⏌. Have you heard of Spiderman?"

"Oh yeah! that would be awesome!" But she quickly curbed her enthusiasm. "But there's no big building here, and everyone would see you." That was a good point. While La Rochelle was a decently sized city, it was not a big hub. The tallest buildings were in residential areas, and even there they were spaced quite a bit. Looked like I would do it somewhere else. Perhaps Bordeaux was big enough.

"Yeah you're right…" I sighed. But something she said suddenly clicked. "Wait, the guy from yesterday attacked me but I couldn't see a thing. Are stands invisible to normal?" If they were it explained why stands were not widely known. It would be difficult to prove that something you can't see does exist.

"Yeah they are. Only stand users can see stands." She could have mentioned it earlier. But it alleviates some of my concerns. I wouldn't have to worry too much about using my stand in public. It would make things far easier.

"Any other rules that I should be aware of?" I squinted at her. There was no way in hell I was fighting other stand users without knowing everything there had to be known.

"Uuuuuuuh…" Her face scrunched up in concentration and then lit up. "Oh yeah. When your stand gets hurt you also get hurt. There are some stands that don't do that but they're exceptions. I think." It was probably too much to ask to be one of those. "But don't worry! Only stands can injure stands, so you'll be fine."

No, I would not be fine. While it meant that I did not risk dying by my stand getting hit by a car, it meant that I was vulnerable to other stands. I had been hoping my stand would soak up attacks and act as a shield when I was in danger, but now it looked like I would not have such an easy separation from the fight. Worse, there were two bodies to harm now. Although it also went in the other direction: my enemies would be as vulnerable as me. I did not like that, it just made the whole thing way more dangerous.

"Hey. You okay?" She must have noticed the troubled look on my face, or most definitely my shift in posture in the Slump of Resignation.

"Yeah. I just need some fresh air."

* * *

The sun was well past its apex and a cool air with the scent of the sea was carried upon my face. Between my beauty sleep earlier and the aftermath of our fight, an entire day had almost passed. We were in June, so I guessed it was roughly 8 o'clock. I really wanted to know what happened to Jacques' body, but it would have been moved since then. And showing up at the scene would probably be plain stupidity.

No, I was just out there to breathe some fresh air. Despite the hour, the docks were busy, people coming and going from their hangar to the numerous boats propped on solid ground. I could slightly smell the polish.

What was I going to do? This whole thing made me think again about my situation. An exercise I avoided as best as I could for a long time. I did that for two months. I had to face the facts: for two entire months I did absolutely nothing to take care of myself. Yeah, I went to the town hall once to try solving my problems, but once I found out I couldn't do it this way, I just stopped. I stopped hoping I could get out.

But now, there were new actors in play. Those powers…They defied my perception of the world. There was no way in hell ⎾Mistral Gagnant⏌ was compliant with the modern understanding of the laws of physics. The tea thing and gravity thing could be rationalized by saying it transferred energy and force, even though you couldn't get me to actually explain how THAT worked. But apparently it healed me too. She took my "wounded" attribute and gave it to something else. That was supernatural, beyond the realm of logic. It worked on the level of subjective concepts.

On one side it made me confused as hell. How many people knew about it? Was the government in the loop about it? It depended on several factors. Namely how long were stands running around and how frequently they appeared. It appeared that for the stand to manifest, the Arrow played some part, but could they appear naturally? Maybe Louise did, but then again maybe her father was in possession of the arrow at the time and my aggressor took it from him. But that would mean he killed Louise's father who was a stand user before getting the arrow and getting a stand himself. There were a lot of other possibilities of course, too many to count, so I should just keep that question for later.

While these questions and the anxiousness of possibly meeting dangerous stand users were harassing me, I could not deny a burning curiosity was engulfing me. This was something completely new. I was learning to become a scientist, and as such this insult to the mechanics of the world as we knew it wasn't frustrating, It was a wet dream come true. The mere fact that stands were the direct product of the mind meant there was something _special _about us, we were not just very complex machines with no real free will, maybe souls were really a thing. Of course, I doubted my ability to actually study the working of stands, but if I could resume my studies…. Maybe one day.

I was continuing my line of thought while admiring the place when I heard jingling behind me. It was of course Louise. Still dressed in her mismatched getup and adorned with a frankly ridiculous amount of jewelry.

"You feel better?" she asked.

"Yeah. I was just anxious for a bit about what the presence of these powers meant. I just needed to see the upside of it." Facing killers or not, I still had to admit having superpowers was pretty awesome. At least I wasn't as powerless as before.

"Anxious about what? Stands are awesome that's the end o-"A sound coming from the depths of hell suddenly interrupted her. She gave me a look. I was no stranger to hunger anymore, but the days where I couldn't find even a crumb of bread to eat were extremely rare. I could always find a generous soul to at least share a little something or buy a very cheap sandwich with given money. Money I didn't have anymore.

"Say…you wouldn't happen to have a few bucks on you?"

"Pfft…of course I do."

"Well then let's go grab something to eat"

"Wait a minute, I didn't agree to spend MY money for you."

"Is it really your money though?"

"Of course it's my money! I won it at...uh...the fair!" I believed that for a grand total of 0 seconds

"Right. Anyway we both got to eat, so that's settled." I started walking. Louise, while protesting, still followed. Now that we were two I had to find a better way to get money than begging and less of a moral problem than her shameless thefts. That's when I noticed something.

"Wait, are you really going with that getup?"

Indeed she was.


	5. Nighttime

"Are you certain that's a good idea?" Looked like my little sidekick had some doubts.

"We _need_ money, we can't just beg for money in the archways or steal it from people."

"Yes we can, and that's what you're planning anyway. Stealing. That means taking things that belong to other people. You just changed it to a target that you really should not steal from."

"I'm not stealing money here. I'm taking it from hands that are legally not allowed to have it, preventing its use for nefarious purpose."

"It doesn't belong to you either. If you really want to do the right thing _Mr. Upstanding Citizen_ you're gonna have to give it it aaaaaallllllll to the police." I flinched. She got me there.

"Well. The police wouldn't know who it belonged to in the first place. So I might as well keep it."

"You're grasping at so much straws right now you look like a haystack." Not going to deny it.

"Alright. You win. This is indeed stealing. But we need that money, and if I have to do something like that, I'd rather not feel guilty about it." I admitted.

"Well, between safe targets I feel a bit guilty about and a target that could kill me that I wouldn't feel guilty about, the choice is pretty clear. You're a moron."

"That's not your problem anyway, you're not coming with." I really wasn't going to bring a 10 years old kid into a gang safehouse. "And I have [Iron Maiden] with me, you shouldn't worry too much. What are the odds I stumble upon a random stand user?"

"And what about guns? Can your Stand stop bullets?" If I put it in the direct path of the bullet, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be harmed. All that jazz with stands' only weakness being other stands. But could I react fast enough to a bullet shot without warning? Not so sure.

"Look, what's your range?" I had an idea.

"Around two hundred meters I think."

"You could go with me as recon. Obviously you'd be yourself far enough from the action to be safe from harm. You just send your stand and watch everyone with your invisible ghost bird. You warn me if you see any danger." She lit up. Looks like she really did like being part of the action. What's more she would be completely out of harm's way while being incredibly useful.

"Alright! Let's do this!" Wow. A bit too enthusiastic. "We'll be like Superheroes! What should we call ourselves?"

"The Homeless Duet? But seriously, just use our stand names."

"One: that's a terrible superhero team name, and two: those are the names of our powers, not ours." I was tempted to argue that stands were, in fact, us, but I really wasn't feeling it.

* * *

We walked for a while. The night was nice that day. Not too cold, not too heavy. The empty streets echoed by Louise's prattling about superheroes. Maybe I should have made her stay at the workshop. It was way past her bedtime and, though it was kept minimal, putting her at risk was a bit unsettling. But I knew that if I left her alone, she would just have followed me anyway, she was stubborn like that. The terrible battle that I waged in order to convince her to limit her worn jewelry to 3 pieces instead of up to 30 was still fresh on my mind. I was victorious, but the epic confrontation left me with a persistent headache for the rest of the afternoon.

But despite the innocent atmosphere, the fact was that we were going in a lair of pretty serious neo-nazis. I had no idea why they were a thing in the 80's, but they were, to the eternal shame of western countries, and I had to deal with it.

The place wasn't really known to the authorities, it was well hidden. But when you live in the streets 24/7 and literally have nothing to do with your days but talk and listen, you were bound to hear interesting things, things you shouldn't know about. And listening was one of my best skills. I, of course, had the sense to not spread those secrets told to me by people with evidently less sense than me, lest I risk revealing my knowledge to the wrong person.

We soon arrived. Just a building two stories high, like all the others around it. Nothing really special to it. Except for the loads of drugs and cash stashed inside. I pulled on my balaclava. The last thing I wanted was for my face to be seen if I was detected.

"Alright, can you look around the house?"

[Mistral Gagnant] took flight, quickly disappearing from sight as it looked for guards and potential backdoors.

"I can't see anyone watching the front door." Obviously they weren't going to spill the location of the place like that. The guards must be on the other side of the door.

"Is there anything behind the house?"

"Yeah, there's a small courtyard. But it's lined by the other buildings. The only window or door to it is from the safehouse." Unless you were climbing a 4 stories building, you probably weren't getting there. How did they even get to have that courtyard to themselves without attracting questions?

"You can see anything through it?"

"Better, I can get through the window! Ugh, toilets! God, it stinks." She could smell through her stand?

"You can pass the door?"

"No problem. It's done" Nice! It definitively was a good idea to bring her along.

"So, what are they doing?"

"They're playing cards. There's 8 of them around the table." The number was not unexpected. It was logic that there were gonna be some armed guards. Luckily they were distracted.

"What about the 2nd floor and the basement?"

"Ok, let me look at this."

…

…

"Alright, everything is in the basement, the 2nd floor is basically empty except for some beds and worthless stuff. The stairs to basement are under the stairs to 2nd floor. Everybody is in the first one."

"Alright, I'm going in through the second floor. I'm gonna need you to unlock the window. Warn me through your stand if you something starts happening."

I left her corner of the street, and headed straight to the side of the building. She did her job right, no one was watching. It was kinda weird in fact. Were they that confident that no one would try anything?

Well I wasn't going to complain.

I soon reached the bottom of the building. It was of these old buildings that are so frequent in the middle of the city. They were ancient even now, 30 years back. They were part of the old town, and were probably from the early 19th century or older. Sure, some had fallen and were replaced with slightly more modern housings, but for the most part they had stayed, which was impressive. If a house had stood for 200 hundred years without problems, you didn't have anything to worry about in the near future, except maybe asbestos and old lead pipes.

The only problem was that save for the select few houses of the flamboyant members of the bourgeoisie, most belonged to the low-middle class, which didn't have the money to build something stylistic. The result was that you had a crapton of bland old looking buildings pressed together in a square kilometer. Good for the atmosphere of the place, but honestly it was kinda getting old to me.

Enough lollygagging, I had stuff to do.

I produced one of my hooks. They were in fact coming from my stand's skin, a small hole the size of the thing appearing on it's hand, the cosmetic effect didn't appear on my own body though. But that was just one hook, what would happen if I used hundreds of them at the same time? I wasn't eager to find out.

I threw my tiny grappling hook to the wall just above the window and made it phase into it. A thread sent into it and that was it. I let my stand do the heavy lifting. I made it hold me while I retracted the wire, making us rise into the air.

Once I reached the desired window I just waited in front of it. After two minutes [Mistral Gagnant] appeared. It took a scroll from the window and I heard a click. Sure enough, I pushed and the window was unlocked. Still bullshit.

"Alright, go back to watching them, I'll take a look around to see if I find anything of worth."

* * *

Luc Verande wasn't having a good day.

He woke up at 6 a.m. to do some work. The little meeting they had at 10 was boring as hell. He ate a single sandwich at lunch and dinner. And now he had to watch over this safehouse for the entire night, the most boring job there was. At least the other guys knew how to have fun. Nothing better than a bit of friendly poker to uplift the spirits a bit.

That would be the case if Luc was winning or wasn't a sore loser. At this time he was pretty much convinced at least 3 of his 7 adversaries were cheating hard. He couldn't possibly be bad at this game.

No chance.

God dammit, he had to take a break. He put down his cards and got up. Direction: the kitchen.

"Alright, I'm going to make myself something to eat, someone want some?" Nothing better than some carbonaras to get better.

"Wait, are you bailing on the game? I guess there's no shame to it. If I was in your place I too would rather bake some crappy shit to avoid that humiliation." That fucking pussy Marc had the gal to mock him like that?

"Watch your words moron, I'm not in a good mood."

"Right, and you'll do what exactly? Punch me with one of those twigs?" He said as he got up. So that was what was going on. He was just a stupid thug. These guys tended to mix up muscles with authority. Luc may have been scrawny but he was no pushover. Everyone knew that. Except him it looked like.

The smug moron was smirking. As he was walking back to him, Luc took a look around the poker table. Marc was the only one smiling. The others just looked like they didn't want to be here. Good, it wasn't their problem. If they helped Marc they would be enemies, if they helped Luc

it would look like he was weak.

"Not exactly." In a single motion he took one of the beer bottles on the table and directed it right to his face.

To his credit Marc reacted quickly and ducked under the purposefully missed attack. maiming comrades was almost always a no go,. This one just needed to get a message. But when you're surprised like that you always make a mistake.

In this case the "dodge" was rushed and left Marc inattentive and leaning towards his back. All Luc had to do was to grab his arm, push his chin up and then quickly sweep his legs. And done. The only thing saving Marc from a cracked skull was the grabbed arm. He wasn't finished though

Luc sat on his upper torso, locking Marc's arms under his knees. He pulled up his head and broke the beer bottle under it, then grounding it on the ground to make a small pile of glass shards. He pushed the head down.

"Wait wait wait don't do that!" He was panicking.

"Shut up. This is a lesson. You will listen" Marc shut up. "Now you seem to be under the impression that you are still on the streets, kicking down hobos and mugging random people. That's not the case anymore." Luc pushed harder. "You are now in an organization. We are not motivated by violence but by a cause. Your betters will not be the strongest, but the most dedicated to our community, the most intelligent." Marc could feel his skin start breaking "There is no concept of strength in the hierarchy here, even among the muscle, only of skill. I am your boss here because I am a more skilled leader than you are. And if you defy that order of things again, you will find that nobody above have uses for idiots like you that acts like they are better than they are. Got it?"

According to his face, the message went through. Luc got up.

"Pierre, you check his head is fine. Jean, you clean up this mess. I'm going to eat." They obeyed.

Finally, the kitchen. Time to make art.

Pick the spaghetti from the drawer, fresh cream, milk and lardons from the fridge and put them on the counter. Pour water into a pot, salt it, cover it and make it boil. The original recipe was with egg yolk. But Luc didn't have any, and he preferred to just use fresh cream and milk. Pouring the milk into the frying pan removed all the grease from the bottom of the pan, making the final sauce far more liquid and tasty. Not to mention it was more healthy than just putting as much fresh cream as you could.

He waited. He could hear the boys arguing in the next room. He already said his piece, what followed was not his problem. If it became as such he would act, but he trusted he was convincing.

So he took some chèvre from the fridge and cut himself some slices. Some to immediately eat, and others for later.

The water boiled. He put the pasta into the pot, and an empty pan onto a small fire. He stirred the pot to prevent the spaghetti from sticking to the bottom and the sides, and after a few minutes finally put the lardons into the pan. Damn, he forgot to put butter it. He had to keep stirring them now, some little projections of boiling grease landed on his skin making him wince.

Finally they were cooked. Now put the milk, and then the cream. He then mixed til it was homogeneous? Now he just had to wait till the pastas were cooked.

He tasted them, the were just right. Cut the fire. Drain, serve and pour the sauce on.

The final touch: put the cheese slices on the dish and mix it all up.

Luc saw what he had made, and he saw that it was good. Just like his mom made them.

Nothing better than some cooking to unwind a bit. Now to enjoy the fruits of his work.

Luc went back to the living room. Sure enough the guys had went back to playing poker a few minutes ago. They looked at him from the corner of their eyes. They were not going to act as easy going around him as before, but mutiny was far less likely. He was not their pal, he was their leader.

He sat down on another table. He was going to enjoy himself.

That's when he looked up.

How long had there been a green sculpture of a bird on the rafters?

Then it moved. And it looked at him.

They stood there, looking at each other for several seconds. And then it flew away to the second floor.

There was only one thing to say to that.

"Oh shit! Guys we have an intruder!"

This night was getting worse by the second.


	6. Punching Nazis

I was wasting my time.

I had been searching everywhere for close to 10 minutes and the best I found was a 10 franc bill and a few knick-knacks. I could eat for a 2 days with that, but that was it. And there were two mouths to feed now. The objective was to get enough money so that I'd never have to do it ever again.

Damn it. What if someone decided to go upstairs? A key component to all infiltration was speed. Get in. Get all that good shit. Get out before someone notices. And I wasted my time for 3 sandwiches.

The basement was the final destination, no sense to delay it further.

That's when I saw [Mistral Gagnant] coming my way. That wasn't a very good sign, was someone coming upstairs?

That's when I heard the shouts from the guards. We were discovered. Of course it went wrong. What kind of moron would try to infiltrate a gang safehouse? I read too many wormfics. How did they find out about me? I didn't make much noise. Which meant someone saw Louise's stand. There was a stand user in the building.

Gah! So stupid! Of course there would be a stand user there! There literally was a nutjob going around at night shooting people randomly with some sort of stand-giving arrow. Why wouldn't he shoot a nazi at some point? And then why wouldn't they put the guy with superpowers on guard duty?

I desperately tried to gather my wits despite the panic that I could feel mounting. I had to get out immediately. But would that be the right move? If they knew I was a stand user, they should know I could go out by the window easily since I already did the climb. If I was them I would post myself in front of the building, waiting for the robber to go out of the window and then catch him in a position of weakness.

My only choice was to stand my ground and take them down. I only had a few moments to prepare myself, but I had to make do. I shot some strings around the place, making tripwires and other basic traps. They weren't going to take the tugs down, but it would create an opportunity to strike.

"Louise, I'm going to need your help to getting rid of them."

I could hear the sound of feet going upstairs. I put myself out of view, in the corner next to the stairway. The moment a foot reached the floor proper I got out and kicked as hard as I could with my stand. It reached a torso, I could feel bones cracking under the hit. The poor guy was sent backwards and hit three guys behind him. Unfortunately it was a spiral staircase, and the nazis that weren't in the direct path of the body could shoot me just fine.

A few bullets embedded themselves in the wall behind me under the thundering roar only guns fired indoors could make. They had guns. Of course they had guns. I fled to the back of the floor as fast as I could. I wasn't thinking really straight right now, my mind was solely focused on my survival, I had to get in a better position.

I tripped on one of the wires I set up earlier. How stupid. Losing time like that. Enough time. A few bullets flew by me as I got up. I had to get into a more confined place where my fists would have a better chance at landing than their weapons.

I went into the closest room to me and hid behind furniture. I waited. Damn it, where was [Mistral Gagnant]?

After what seemed like an eternity two guards passed through the door. My heartbeat was going crazy. They had their guns in hand. They went closer. Closer. Even Closer. I striked. [Iron Maiden] grabbed the barrel of the gun closest to me and with the other hand punched the stomach of the guard as hard as it could. The poor guy vomited on the floor.

I grabbed him from behind, turning him in a human shield. The other guy clearly was hesitant to shoot his pal. I took advantage of it as I launched effortlessly my meat shield to him with my stand. The speed enough to put these two out of commission.

I had just enough time to pick up a gun on the bodies before someone else passed through the door. I tried to shoot on reflex, but he was faster. As a bullet hit my shoulder, my own aim was messed up and hit nothing.

From then on, everything went terribly fast. The 4 guards that were left started to pour inside the room. That's when Louise intervened. The bird passed through two guys in a row. The first started to float while the other one fell to the floor barely moving. I launched a hook to the weightless goon and brought it over to me where I kicked him through the plaster wall.

No time for caution. I launched myself at the two others. They desperately tried to shoot me down before reaching them, but my stand blocked the bullets. In a few hits that sent their teeth flying, they were left unconscious on the floor.

It was over. The whole confrontation didn't take more than 10 seconds. But I was victorious. I did my best to calm down. I was safe.

That's when I remembered I was shot in the shoulder. I barely paid attention to it with the adrenaline, but it happened. I wasn't bleeding. My clothing was pierced where the bullet hit, but not my shoulder. There was only a bruise. Did my power come with superhuman toughness?

No. It was invisible to the naked eye, but now that I was paying attention to it, I could feel it. Just as my stand's body was made of its hooks, they somehow manifested themselves on my body, acting as a chainmail. It was not physical, but rather because my stand had this added protection, I had it too?

While I was musing this, the man that was downed by Louise started to get up, so I kicked him the face.

"Alright, let's go get the money then." I said to Louise. She went ahead.

God what a night. With some luck I would not have to repeat such a stunt anytime soon. With the money I should get from this it would not be hard.

I reached the stairway when I noticed there was only one man out for the count in the stairway. I was forgetting something. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7… I got only 7 of them, but Louise said there were 8. Where was the last one? And for that matter where was the stand user?

"If you're looking for me, I'm right here."

A man was climbing the stairs with assurance. Despite being in his twenties he was scrawny, especially compared to the brutes that were the other guards. He didn't seem unhealthy, he simply looked like he hadn't worked-out a single day in his life. He was not completely shaven, three strands of hair, one on each side of the head and one on the top, gathering in a ponytail. This haircut should have looked atrocious, but somehow, as well groomed as it was, he made it look great.

Was he trying to stand apart from the other skinheads? When you looked at his attire the answer was instantly "Yes". He wore a red shirt with intricate silver motifs and black suspenders. Standard baggy pants completed the ensemble. Definitely not usual skinhead ensemble. The suspenders may have been common in those groups at the time, but the fashionable flashy shirt? Really? Maybe he was enough of a top dog that he wanted to differentiate himself from the others, which is kind of contrary to the skinhead trend but whatever.

Something was caught in his left hand. It was trying to break free as hard as it could, but the grip was unmoving. [Mistral Gagnant]. How did she get caught so easily?

"Oh ho... look at what I caught there. Since you're not writhing on the floor, I have to assume that this is a by-product of your real stand. But you are looking pretty nervous right there. Is it not yours?" Shit, was I that transparent? "Yes, definitely not yours. But don't worry for your friend, I'm not trying to crush it. Yet."

A hostage situation huh? Why did I think bringing a kid in there was a good idea?! I have no idea how to manage those kinds of things!

"So, are you going to stop looking constipated over there and start talking? It is pretty rude. Do you even realize how long you made me wait in front of the building? Was it foresight, instinct, or simply panic that made you stand your ground? Or perhaps a bit of the three?" So I did make the right call by staying inside. If I tried to jump who knows how it could have ended.

"The last one, I think. And sorry to have kept you waiting, I was a bit busy with your boyfriends over there." I really wasn't in the mood to talk smack, but I forced myself to in order to quash the nervousness.

"Oooh...Looks like you're not mute after all. So maybe you can answer this little question for me. Who the FUCK are you?! You're not one of those commie bastards. They may be completely moronic, but they at least know better than to leave their fucking stand in the middle of one of our safehouses. If you were with the police, there would be more than two of you and without stands to boot. Which answers my first question: you're a nobody. And the only reason a nobody would come here without knowing there's a stand user posted here at all times is for theft. Second question: who the FUCK do you think you are?!" His somewhat neutral expression turned furious. His grip on the bird started tightening.

"You THINK you can just WALTZ up in here, STEAL our money, and THRASH my men?! So listen carefully, I will give a lesson to both of you: I will slowly beat you to a pulp, then we will go find your friend and I will follow with looooots of questions." I really did not like the sound of that. But as much as I loved the integrity of my body, Louise's took priority. I was the one who dragged her into this mess.

"Look, I'm not going to say I didn't beg for a good sucker punch there." Perhaps even a Darwin Award. "But let this stand go, she's just a kid, she shouldn't have to bear the responsibility of my mistakes."

Surprise appeared on his face. Then confusion. Then laughter.

"Hahahaha! Did you really think I would fall for that? You don't look like the type to put kids at risk, and we both know what would happen the moment I drop her. I don't really know what this stand's abilities are, but I doubt it's just scouting" Having a nazi calling you out, even though he didn't even know it, was a new low for me.

And he wasn't wrong. There was a good chance Louise would attempt to retaliate the moment she was free. On top of that she was a hostage: without her he would have to fight head on an unknown stand user. With her in his grasp, I was at his mercy.

There really was only one way to get out of this. It made me apprehensive. If I messed up I had no way to know what he would do to Louise. I didn't know what he was capable of. But capture was out of the question. I steeled my nerves.

"Great. And what if I refuse? I'm not going to get on my knees for some petty thug." Was that taunting enough?

It was. With a self-satisfied smirk he put the hand holding [Mistral Gagnant] forward, putting a bit more force in his grip, making sure that the threat was on full display.

That was exactly the reaction I wanted.

Promptly I sent a thread around the hooks littering the corridor from my useless preparations against the other goons. It was blindingly fast, if I couldn't actually feel it I would have said that the thread just appeared in this position instead of being placed there. And in the right sequence I made the hooks disappear while retracting the thread. In essence it was the same tactic I used against Louise, but this time I wasn't aiming to capture, he would still have his hostage if I did that. My goal was to harm.

The ring of looping thread caught the end of his extended arm, tightening around and violently twisting his wrist.

"AAAAARRRGH!"

Even though I was the one responsible, I couldn't help but flinch. It did not seem broken, but the look of the twisted flesh under the looping wire, tainted by the blood that came out where it dug too deep screamed "Painful".

But my goal was achieved: his grip was broken.

"Now! Run! I'll take care of this." Louise quickly obeyed and flew towards the room with the open window. Good. I did not want to put her in jeopardy again, once was far too much already.

"Alright. Do you want to think back on your terms of surrender now?"

The man was in agony, his other hand clutching at his still tied up injured wrist.

"FUCK YOU, YOU SACK OF SHIT! [GRAND FUNK RAILROAD]!" As soon as he said those words a weird yellowish contraption appeared upon his back. Tentacles with strange teardrop motifs were attached to his limbs while the head of the stand was looking over his shoulder. It had no face to speak of, there were only concentric circles behind some white vertical bars.

That's when it shot an intense beam of light that blinded me. The thing was a fucking spotlight?! What kind of power was that? Well an effective one at least. Even if it was only light it bears to remember that the only source of lighting before was the glow of the moon through the windows. My eyes screamed in pain from the sudden influx and I reeled back in shock trying to keep my composure. It didn't help that the light was just _weird_. I didn't know if it was due to being generated by a stand, but the colour was not something I ever saw before.

That's when I heard a detonation and felt my shoulder getting thrown back. Of course he had a gun.

Blinded and shot at, I dropped my hold on him and rushed in an adjacent room.

I hid behind a wall and collected myself. I had to find a way to get to him, but his eldritch spotlight was not going to make it easy. I could just run blindly towards the light, but that would be pretty stupid. I knew I could trust my chainmail to block bullets, but it still hurt like a bitch and were I to stumble I would certainly be dead. This fight was going to be a pain in the ass.

I had been behind that wall for a while and I had no plan to speak of. Turns out that someone that blinds you when he looks at you is difficult to deal with. But he hadn't done anything either. He could have tried to shoot through the wall, even though it would certainly be a waste of precious ammo.

And then I saw it. Rays of the strange light were coming through the wall behind me. I didn't have time to react. His hand went through the wooden wall an grabbed my throat.

"Urrk" was the only thing I could say as he pulled me back. God that was a strong grip, I didn't expect such a scrawny guy would have such strength. Another thing I didn't expect was to pass through the wall without any resistance. I barely felt it, It was as if the thing was just dust at this point.

The spotlight was right in my face, all I could see was a faint silhouette of the guy within the flare.

"Alright. Now tell me who the FUCK you are!" he half shouted at me. He was pissed, but he also sounded genuinely curious. He got over his injury fast. He loosened his grip on my throat so I could at least talk. I told him that first thing that came to mind.

"You know, I expected you to say "Vee haff VAYS of making hyu tok"" He punched me in the face, hard. Even through the chainmail it felt powerful. That was a great decision Captain Smartass. But even dazed I could retaliate.

"[Iron Maiden]!" I could feel the banshee-like stand form and as soon as I could I punched him back. He dropped me and stumbled backwards.

As he turned away from me, I could see him a bit better without the damned light in my face, there was some blood at the corner of his mouth, but that was it. A kick from my stand sent a man flying. How tough was this guy?

And then the stand's face went right back at me. So, it was independent from the direction of its user's head. I didn't want to go back on the defensive, I had to press whatever advantage I still had. I rushed him. He kicked me.

I flew.

In pain and confusion, I felt myself hitting and passing through something tough. The only thing that saved my back was [Iron Maiden] who took the brunt of the collision.

I got up in the ruins of the wall. He was advancing on me. I had to get out of there and fast.

I flinched. I didn't fight seriously often so I wouldn't know, but if I had to guess, my ribs were not in top shape. I pushed through the pain and did my best to move out of the light. God, I felt heavy.

I wasn't going to win a straight up brawl against this monster. I had to get out of his line of sight.

I absconded through the wall I hit into another room. I used the little time I had to touch everything there, putting the terrain to my advantage.

He came barreling through the wall. He was fast. Fast enough for me.

I tripped him.

The thread held under the force and he fell in a tumble. I sidestepped him as he hit the wall and immediately jumped him. I tied him to the ground and jumped on his back, forcing the gaze of his stand upwards with a thread under its neck. It visibly affected the user, a furrow forming under his neck.

I continued choking him until a creaking noise came from the ceiling. The wooden ceiling was cracking under its own weigh.

I got off his back as the ceiling fell, bringing with it more pieces of the infrastructure and some pieces of furniture that were sitting in the roof space.

Amidst the cloud of dust, I could feel him ripping free from his restraints, his silhouette got up.

"I think I figured out your ability. At least beyond being a portable spotlight." I called out to him. Banter, stall far a bit of time. "The ceiling was doing just fine until you shone your light on it, same for the wall earlier, I went through it like it was papier-mâché. And not just the building, I admit I felt myself feeling heavier under your light. That's what it does doesn't it? It makes what it touches weaker."

He clapped condescendingly "Not bad, not bad. You're observant. But there's more, [Grand Funk Railroad]'s ability is not to _weaken_, it's to _steal_. The light does not come from my stand, it's your strength leaving you." So he ramps up over time as I myself get weaker. Fuck.

"Wait, if the light comes from me, how come it blinds me? That's not how light works."

"When did stands ever follow the rule of physics?"

And then he was upon me.

He was too close for his stand to properly blind me, but it didn't matter. I tried to keep up, my stand was still slightly faster and stronger than him, but he was more skilled. He avoided my hits like a damn pro, while I barely managed to block. And then I overextended. He grabbed my arm, and judo threw me through the floor.

I landed through a poker table.

I did my best to gather my strength, as I shakily got up. How much time did I have before he came back? I had to be ready.

"You know, I have to admit, you're pretty good. Not good enough to beat me, but pretty good." He was slowly going down the stairs as he talked, the bastard was taking his time, certain of his victory. "You got a good head on your shoulders, and your stand is pretty interesting, I admit I was caught off guard at first, but it's obvious you need a bit of setup to use it to its full extent."

"Alright, I'm awesome, what's your point?"

"You're not THAT awesome, but you're, as I said, pretty good. And we could use a pretty good stand user."

"Wait, are you throwing a recruitment pitch at me?"

"Of course. You would be a boon to the cause. Having you, and possibly your friend, join us of your own free will would be enough to look past this little fight. Forcing you to join would be useless, press-ganging is useless to any respectable organization anyway, why would you fight alongside someone who wants to stab you in the back?" Hahaha. "_Respectable"_?

"Yes, respectable." I said that out loud? I must have been more banged up than I thought. "I know people think of us as no more that thugs, idiots that gather under a banner to feel strength in numbers. But we're not. Some of us may have been thugs, but unified under a cause, we are brothers!" Damn, he was enthusiastic. Was I really going to let myself get sucked in an ideological debate with a literal Nazi?

Yes.

"You may be brothers, yes, but brothers of hatred. What good is your unifying cause if it is founded upon oppression and ignorance?"

"It's everyone else who is ignorant for not addressing the problem at hand. Our country is struggling, and it is better off without dead weight."

"Dead weight? Who decides who is dead weight? What makes someone dead weight? Why wouldn't you be the one this country is better off without? And what would you do with them huh?! Millions died decades ago by this moronic ideology; do you really want to do that again?" I was getting a bit angry, as Nazis tend to make you.

"The past is the past. What is important is us as a community. It is the sum of our views. Even if there's leadership we each bring something to the table that steers the whole thing in a certain path to the same objective. This feeling of purpose and taking part in something greater than yourself, you don't have it do you? You have nothing to strive for. What kind of desperation and disregard for your own safety pushes a man to enter a well-guarded safehouse?" Ouch, touché. But this nonsense had to stop.

"I get it. Living as a part of a "community" is great. Hanging around and fighting with people you can count on, it's intoxicating. It's one of the best drugs in the world. But it's easy to forget that there's more than your own feelings to take into consideration. Look at those around you, not as comrades, but as people, and tell me they are good persons."

He was glaring at me now, my incredible rhetoric seemed to have pissed him off. Good, I was pissed off too. Luckily, this little bout was long enough for me to recover. I was standing in the ruins of the poker table. Blood was flowing from my split lip, a good portion of my body was numb from contusions, and there was a wet spot on the back of skull. Despite all of that, I never felt so focused in my life.

"You piece of shit, you don't know what you're talk-"I interrupted him when I launched the broken table at him. He didn't expect it, his line of sight was broken for a few seconds. I had to capitalize on it.

I felt every single hook I placed in the house. I _knew_ where they were, and I knew that with a mere thought I could reach them.

I reached to one that was on the floor above, behind the man. My thread phased through the floorboards to reach my target. And I _pulled. _I went flying behind the object I threw, fast enough to be just behind it when it was smashed away, fast enough that when I kicked him, he stumbled back a few steps. I didn't give him time to recover.

"RAAAAAAAAH!" I roared with my stand as it punched him as fast as it could, hitting him over and over and over again.

But I knew it wouldn't be enough.

A flash in my eyes. A fist in my face.

I was on the ground, blood flowing from my mouth. I didn't have much strength left.

"That was a nice try, but it's over." He was looking down on my slumped form. I had to give it to him, despite his coming victory he still took it seriously, he was the type of guy to treat the loser with respect.

I had to remember to at least do the same when we switched place.

"Yes, it's over now." Those words didn't come from his lips but mine.

Pink threads flew from my stand through the hooks I attached on him in my frenzied attack and ended on the ones I set up all around the place. Then I cut my own link to them. He was now stuck, dozens of threads linking his flesh to various points around the house. It wasn't perfect, he had some leeway, but he wasn't going to punch me anytime soon.

As I shakily got up, he thrashed around, pulling at the strings to try dislodging the various hooks around, using his stand to weaken his anchors. It was working, but not fast enough: I was now behind him.

The fight had been going on from some time now, his body was now too strong for me to directly harm. The punches I gave earlier knocked him around sure, but he was barely grazed. Even earlier, in our little exchange of blows on the upper floor his skin felt like rock. So how did I manage to strangle him then? The answer was obvious.

I punched the head of [Grand Funk Railroad]. Its user spat blood. That was all the confirmation I needed.

"ADIADIADIADIADIADIADIADIADIADI" I hit him. Last time I was mostly concerned with the number of hits, to put as many hooks as I could on him. THIS was the decisive blow. I made sure every punch landed with as much force as I could muster where it would do the most damage. I poured my soul into it.

Eventually the stand faded. I gave the courtesy back. I made my hooks fade. And as he was falling to the ground like a puppet without strings, I delivered one last punch to his bloodied face, letting all the stress and tension of the fight flow out of me in this single action. His skin didn't feel like steel anymore.

"ADIEU CONNARD!" He flew and embedded himself in the wall.

It was over, I won.

I picked up some bills on the ground that undoubtedly came from the poker table, it had to be enough, I wasn't in the mood to search for more anyway.

There was a plate on a table in an untouched corner. Spaghetti Carbonara, it looked tasty.

The police or reinforcements would come here eventually. I couldn't stay longer. So I left.

"I'm taking the spaghetti!"

That hadn't been very respectful, but I've never been a good winner.

* * *

Stand Name : [Grand Funk Railroad]

User: Luc Verande

Destructive Power: C

Speed: C

Range: B

Persistence: A

Precision: B

Development Potential: C

Ability: [Grand Funk Railroad] is capable of absorbing the strength of everything it looks at and transmit it to its user. The flow of "strength" takes the appearance of a beam of light of strange color due to its supernatural nature, as such only stand users are able to see it. If something is left under [Grand Funk Railroad]'s gaze for too long, it will lose its integrity, the "strength" keeping the matter together dissipating until the object simply disintegrate.  
It is also notable that it has a blinding effect, the light coming from the back of the eye interfering with the photoreceptors on the retina.

* * *

A.N.: Alright, it's finally done. To tell the truth, I almost didn't release this chapter. After all this time simply not working on it, the plans I made on the story felt a bit cringy to me. Not bad, but I put it off indefinitely. So it sat there in my folder, half finished for a few months. But everytime I opened Word, it looked at me, whispering in my ear to at least conclude this mini arc.  
Well I did it now. I hope you liked it.  
Frankly, there's a good chance I won't write this story anymore. my original plan was to create a story parallel to Stardust Crusaders, showcasing how the events of that story influenced those in a French city. Nothing too overt, I didn't want to have a wild DIO encounter, but maybe some cameos, a few lines here and there. Basically an original Jojo story in the established Jojo universe.  
But I fear this may have been overly ambitious. Not to mention how the SI idea felt way better a year ago. There's also how hard it is for me to allot time to writing over my studies and other stuff.

I at least hope you had a good time reading my story, as short and unfinished as it is, and I hope to meet you again maybe in a future chapter or another story.


End file.
